Lost in the Garden

At first blush, 45-year-old attorney and golfer Michael Benedict seems a knowing, self-deprecatingly witty confidant as he details the breakdown of his long and happy marriage to a ""mostly perfect"" woman. When his wife, Kelly, announces she is pregnant with their third child at the age of 40, Michael, still traumatized by the miscarriage of their last baby, can only summon up a callous: ""What are we going to do about it?"" Predictably annoyed, Kelly soon refuses him sex, and heends up moving out of his suburban Pittsburgh house and back home with his wealthy, exasperated parents. There, he seeks out prostitutes and sex therapists, and sets his sights on breaking 70 in his golf game and making the PGA Senior Tour at 50. After a promising start, Beard doesn't provide enough plot to keep the reader from losing patience with Beard's self-absorbed mid-lifer and his games (sporting and otherwise).